Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel - Will I Always Be Alone?

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

He comes to Esther not with a singular question but with an overflow of words and unspoken truths. Betrayed by a once-supportive church and struggling to reconcile his desires with his emotions, he carries a loneliness that has followed him across continents. This session is all about naming. Naming the parts of his life, the feelings left unspoken, and the longings that ache in his heart. Esther Callings are a one time, 45-60 minute interventional phone call with Esther. They are edited for time, clarity, and anonymity. If you have a question you would like to talk through with Esther, send a voice memo to [e-mail]. Producer’s Note: When our anonymous guests do a session with Esther for the podcast, it is an act of generosity for everyone who listens. These sessions are meant not only to support the people in the room with Esther, but all of us who learn from their stories. Our stories have many chapters, and what you hear is just one moment in someone’s journey. So even though the sessions are anonymous, please remember that real people are behind them and they may be reading your comments. Also, please join me on Entre Nous, my new home on Substack for anyone who wants to live, love, and work with more connection and imagination. I invite you to sign up and become a free or paid member at estherperel.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome. Thank you so much. How are you? I'm shitting myself a little bit. Sometimes I think when you have so much to say, you forget how to speak. So I hope I will be able to say everything which I've had on my mind. Okay. Shall we listen to your voice message?

Sure. Hi, Esther. My question for you is, is where do I go from here? How do I remember who I am? When I feel like I've lost myself trying to find love, the dating scene has really consumed me so much and I actually don't know what I want anymore.

I moved to a new country with a new language and trying to make new connections in this new space and on a very clean slate. The language is a real difficulty. I feel like I'm not gay enough for the gay community and I'm definitely not straight enough for the church. So, yeah, in trying to find relationships, friendships and a partner, I feel like I've sort of lost myself in,

well, especially in dating, I've lost myself in the chaos of the whole dating scene. When I do meet someone who's nice, I'm quickly uninterested sexually and it seems like I'm only attracted sexually to guys who are either very unavailable, like they are straight or they're not looking for anything serious. Is it possible that I've adjusted my desires to fit into the system whereby I'm fine with emotionless intimacy? I'm also just tired of being the one who is always caring and looking out for and looking after someone. I would like to find a relationship where that is a mutual thing. Support for where should we begin comes from Hintwater. Let me ask you, how is your relationship with water? No, I'm not asking whether you enjoy the rain or whether you like to swim or whether you're a Pisces.

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and read reviews all on the app. Download today. I see you shake your head. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Say more. I think it's just been quite frustrating because I thought arriving in this new big city compared to what I was used to, the opportunities to date, but also the success of dating would be so much higher. And what I've found is it's actually so much more difficult to date in a big city.

And it saddens me a little bit listening to that voice note because I think it's actually so much more difficult to date in a big city. listening to that voice note because I think there's a sense of me which is just tired, is tired of trying and is tired of the sort of like rejection of it and the addictiveness of it. And it feels like this sort of spiral that you don't want to step out of because you feel like that spiral is the only way to get where you want to be. But at the same time, you think, Maybe it's actually not the healthiest environment either. So you sort of don't know where to go from this. Should I jump off or should I keep running?

But running this way isn't getting me anywhere either. Can you tell me where you're running? What you're doing? How low you got? Well, I'm from the UK. I grew up in the UK. I moved to South Africa alone when I was like 18, and then I stayed there for 10 years. And a year and a half ago, I moved to France, and I've been there since.

So French, obviously, not my first language. Really hard when it comes to dating, when it comes to any kind of connections. I found that a barrier to intimate connections. and Europe in general has been a real like mind fuck for me because just the way of life is really different even though this is where I was born this individualistic approach to life is really different to what I had back home

as in back in South Africa and for some reason I've become just like that and like what like what I cling I cling to my solidarity. I don't want to go out. I find meeting people and spending time with people exhausting. And I just want to be alone. But when I'm back home or I spend a lot of time in West Africa,

community is my day to day. But something shifts in me when I get back to Europe and I just don't want to be around people more than an hour, even friends, and I'm exhausted. I have to go home and sleep. and I don't know what it is that is so different there than what it was back home. And you date, you socialize or you avoid it? Or do you get obsessive about it?

I think when it comes to dating, I get obsessive about it. The only way I date is dating apps because I don't go to any places that are, quote-unquote gay, you know. I don't party. I don't, even friends I've made in the gym, they are all straight. And I don't really put myself in those environments in day-to-day life, not because for lack of trying, but because those are like environments, I just don't naturally go to them. Like I wouldn't spend my nights at a bar and I wouldn't go to gay clubs or anything. So I feel like the easiest option for me in terms of dating is apps. And that's like the addictiveness to dating is perhaps more the addictiveness to the apps rather than dating itself.

Where do you go? All of them. All of them. And I will download them and delete them and download them and delete them. Some weeks I can go on a date maybe three times in that week. But yeah, it never seems to. materialize. Materialize meaning that you never see the man again?

Yeah. So if it's a date, like for instance we go for a coffee or for a drink, I can think back to like a few weeks ago. Some dates were okay, but the language was a problem. Other dates, the language was fine, but I just didn't have any connection to this person. It didn't feel great. And then if it's just a hookup, it's just a hookup and you see them once and you never see them again.

And so, yeah, it feels like either the dating or the hookups doesn't seem to materialize in the way that I wish they would. And I think what saddens me is that I think in becoming more and more like the culture, which is just intimacy without responsibility. And I don't want that, but it just feels like that's sometimes the only thing that's on offer. Tell me about your life and your relationships in Africa and in South Africa. I think, firstly, there's smaller cities. So I can't walk 500 meters in Cape Town without seeing someone I know. My life was really outward focused. I just made friends very easily.

I felt really comfortable with strangers, and I had built a really good community because I arrived there. I didn't know anybody. I arrived on my own, and everything I had I had built, and it really felt like home and it was everything I ever wanted. Similarly, when I've been going to West Africa, I've been really fortunate to just find community and to have people who are just around me and it feels easy, it feels natural, and that's not something I have experienced in Europe.

And you had boyfriends, you had relationships, you lived with men or women or whoever? I've only really had two relationships. One was quite short, six months. And then I had a long relationship, which was about two and a half years. We did long distance for a year. And then he moved to Cape Town for about eight months and then that ended about two years ago. So that was, yeah, it's been about two years or a year and a half since my last relationship. And meeting was on your desire list in South Africa as well and you did it the same way, dating apps? Or, I mean, how did you live your romantic lives and sex lives? I kind of came to my sexuality a little bit late, so I didn't.

By the time I had experienced sex, it was pretty soon after that I met my first boyfriend. So I was alone for a long time in South Africa. I felt like I had everything I ever wanted, and only then did I realize I would like to share this with someone. and started to question whether that was a guy or a girl and quickly realized it was a guy. Okay. And then I had a longer relationship. And we met, I think, on social media. It wasn't on a dating app.

But, yeah, when that ended, I felt like apps were the most simple way to meet. And in general, the type of guys I seem attracted to are perhaps the guys who you wouldn't necessarily be able to. know whether they're gay or not. And I think that's why I find that I'm more likely to find them on an app than in real life. Explain. I think I'm and I don't know if it's like a taboo subject or whatever. I just say anything, I guess. In general, I'm just more attracted to more masculine men, men who have similar interest to me. So they're sporty, they like to work out, they have a healthy lifestyle, they are more, quote unquote, masculine or discreet or however you want to put it.

And also, I feel like maybe I should mention, because it's something I'm really, like, conscious about at the moment. I've only really dated black men. And I'm so, like, aware of this. And I'm really conscious of maybe I should force myself. to just like meet different kinds of guys and why is why is this is it bad is there something wrong with me for thinking this and i don't know what it is i mean i feel like my world is mostly this and so i feel like it's the life i chose when i moved to south africa

and I feel like it just fits that world I had imagined so much more. I feel like, I don't know, it's like I feel more understood because I'll try and date like French guys and British guys and I just feel like they don't understand that part of my life. They have so many ideas about what it is and they don't get it. And I don't know whether I should be more open-minded or whether it's bad that I feel this way. I have a sense that many of the questions you're going to ask today are not necessarily questions that need an immediate answer. There are questions that need to be said out loud.

It seems like you have held them in your head and sometimes you have. you have spoken to yourself, but you've actually never heard yourself say these things to someone else. Yeah, definitely. I think, I don't think I really have that outlet. If you have a question and it is followed by what the hell is wrong with me,

then you can't think. A real question has a question mark at the end, and it's a real interrogation, it's an inquiry. I noticed that. I've been done. drawn only two black men. I would like to understand that. There's something I feel a certain understanding. Maybe there's also an erotization. Since I say that straight after I talk about masculinity, a certain type of masculinity, I seem to see it more in black men. I mean, you can judge it,

but it won't help you understand it first or even know what to do with it. So a lot of the things we're going to talk about, we're going to just first ask the questions, then we're going to unpack it, see what we can understand from it. We'll do the best we can in the hour we have. You may not say everything you have to say, because a lot of these things are not things you've talked about. You use the word dating,

and you even use the word hookup, but a lot of this is more than just dating. And when you say, I kind of become the same, kind of sex-driven person than the people that I don't want to interact with, but I end up doing that. I say I want love, but I end up having high-intensity, low-emotion, hit-and-run sex. Yeah. Is there some connection between you're drawn, being drawn to black men and the kind of interactions that you have?

I think there's definitely that, and I think there's... There's definitely what piece of that? the fact that the type of sex or the type of interaction that I would have in a hookup versus what I had had in relationships. But I also think I'm just, I'm tired of the, I think there's this draw to intimacy where I don't have to be responsible for somebody else's emotions. And it's like, finally, I don't have to be. be the one to be responsible and to look after and all of these things.

It's like, finally, I can just be selfish and just enjoy it for what it is and then it's done. I don't have to do all of the other parts which naturally come to me. And so when I'm in a relationship or if there's someone who's important in my life, I just naturally give those things. So it's like, finally, I can just be selfish with this. We are in the midst of our session. There is still so much to talk about. So stay with us.

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Wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. Tell me if I hear you well. When I become intimate, the way that I experience closeness involves for me a heightened sense of responsibility for the feelings of the other person. And I forget myself. And the best way I have found so far to actually be what you call selfish or to be able to focus on me is, an anonymous fuck? Yeah. When I love someone, I become responsible for their happiness.

And where did you learn that? I guess at home. In my family, I was the one who everyone goes to with their problems. And I didn't so much have the place where I was free to have my problems. I was the one who always had their shit together, always doing fine. Who sucked up earlier? My sister. How?

She needed so much more time and support. And even from me, when I was younger, I became her sort of like everything, her support emotionally in every kind of way and only when I moved to South Africa did I start finding a way to distance myself, build boundaries and then slowly work back in a healthy relationship. But it was really, really unhealthy when I look back now, the level of dependency that she had on me and it's so much better now, but I think, yeah, like I find my natural tendency if I'm starting to like someone or starting to enter into a relationship, I want to go back to that way of showing love,

which is just to do everything and anything I can to make sure they are happy. Because I confuse love and care. If I can be needed, I will be loved. Because there was a tacit pact between me and one of my parents. Lay it out for me. You've thought about this a lot. I think because it gave me purpose and reason for being in a family dynamic where I didn't perhaps feel 100% seen.

100% or much at all? I think I... You've been lonely for a long time. Yeah, I knew I was loved, but lonely, yeah. You've been lonely for a long time. Mm. Mm. And there's a lot of sadness and a lot of grief.

Yeah. It's okay, just taking in. When you said I left at 18, and you went far. Couldn't go much further. He wasn't just curiosity for a new place. So I instantly asked myself, what did he run away from? So you spoke about your sister. Was there parents, one parent, two parents, three?

Yeah, two parents. we had a pretty normal family for a long time. My parents only got divorced a few years ago. So at the time it was pretty normal, but like very classic British family, I think. Like my dad is very emotionless, but they were very supportive and very loving. Like I'm very close to my mom.

now again much much much closer so yeah i've definitely worked hard to rebuild those relationships again does anyone in the family know how lonely you felt i don't think so but you're very close but you know them and they don't know you they know nothing about me right however do they know you gay they know i'm gay They did meet my ex, but they know only what I share. And I have never felt able to share anything. It's like I said at the beginning of the call, when you have words on your lips, but they don't come out, that would be about anything.

They would ask how my day was. I couldn't bring myself to say the words. It's like, I've never been able to share anything. And I don't really know why. Since you were a little boy? Yeah, yeah, I've been really secretive and only if emotions would get really, really, really high, then I would just break down and I would tell them something or part of it and then I would close back up the next day. And only if it gets really, really bad, would I not be able to hold it in anymore. do you think there may be a connection between the silence that you learn to keep,

the words on your lips that don't get to be expressed, and the challenges that you have around dating? Perhaps I try to, when I'm getting to know someone, to be as open and express myself as much as I can, and I find it easier in a partner than I do in, say, my family. But, yeah, it definitely doesn't come naturally. Do you express yourself physically more easily than verbally? Yeah, no, I do, yes, because I'm just thinking of examples and I do,

but like if I'm chatting to someone and getting to know someone, the first thing I want to do is say like how can I make your day better what do you need what can I do and I think like I'm really hoping and waiting for them to say but what about you like what do you need what can I do for you but yeah it really comes and then I find myself in the same situation and then I'm like this is exhausting I'm tired of this and let's just move on. So you meet someone and when you like them for a reason that isn't yet totally clear, you feel compelled to ask them, how can I take care of you?

But in fact, what you're really yearning for is someone who says, how can I take care of you? Yeah, exactly. Which means you're kind of setting it up to not get the very thing you want. And you convince people, I mean, I imagine, like you convinced your family, I don't need anything. But then you feel invisible and unloved, and then you feel hurt, and then resentment,

and then you quit. That's exactly like that, yeah. But I don't know how to show love in another way. Okay, let's start with the beginning. I enjoy being with you. I like spending my time with you. I love a connection that we're building. It doesn't have to follow instantly with...

I was going to say it's almost like a false premise. not that you don't want to take care of them, but you actually want something else more. And you don't have to worry, you'll take care of people always in some way or that is inside of you. It's how you ask and make yourself and your presence matter. When you would explode at home, was there a reaction?

I mean, how did this become so entrenched. There is no room for me. It's not just I have no room for my feelings. You say I didn't share a single thing. Not what I saw, not who I played with, nothing. And I became quite detached. And if you don't share anything of your life with anybody,

then you become estranged from yourself. Because we need witnesses. And when you become estranged from yourself, it also becomes easier to have kind of anonymous sex nonstop. Because it's not just that they are not really what you think of as a subjective person, but you don't feel that you are either. And so it deepens the emptiness. Something hallow goes, has a fuck. comes home and feels more hollow.

And then on occasion you cry, alone, silently, and you realize that there is someone inside there who feels deeply and who carries the consequences of being estranged from himself. Yeah. I don't know where it... You asked what happens when... I explode.

I can't remember more than two or three times that it happened. The last time it happened was more recently. I think they don't know what to say. They ask what's wrong. I mean, my dad especially, I wouldn't even bother to break down in front of him because I think he would just walk out the room. he wouldn't know what to do, but my mom would really try to understand and would really try and be there for me. But I also think it's hard for her because I think she doesn't know what to do in those

situations because she's never really seen it. So it's very rare that I have really broken down in front of them or anyone, really. I mean, the goal is not for you to break down. Yeah. But when you say I'm much closer with my mom now, what are you saying? I'm not fleeing her? Yeah, I'm actively trying to help her get to know me. And how are you doing that?

Take her on holiday sometimes, try to... go home and visit her and go for coffee and I try to text her every day and just but it's a real like conscious decision because I also want her to know you know I do love even if I'm not sharing much at all I do love my parents you know I'm lucky to still have two parents and I would do want to show that but it definitely doesn't come naturally. And from her to you? Any opportunity she gets to spend time with me, she will run at it.

Beautiful. Okay. Yeah. And does she inquire about your well-being? Does she ask about your life? She does a lot, but I shut it down straight away. She will try and... Because what you think would happen? I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know what it is. I don't want them to know anything because then they will have an expectation or they will feel like part of it. I almost feel like I want to be able to say like I did it all alone without any help. I did what? I did what all alone? I managed to build a life for myself without the help of anyone

I think it's hard to ask for help and so I want to show that I don't need it. We have to take a brief break, so stay with us and let's see where this goes. Support for Where Should We Begin comes from Coup Sleep Goods. Did you know, that around 50% of postmenopausal women experience sleep disorders? Meaning, it's tough to navigate hot flashes and night sweats,

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I feel that there's so much here. And we can go in a number of different directions. because there's a structure in place and the structure justifies itself all the time. I can do it by myself. I don't need anybody. If I ask for help, I will completely get mush. The only way I can be independent is if I have a wall between me and them.

We're not talking about help. We're talking about closeness. We're talking about self-worth. We're talking about feeling loved. We're talking about letting somebody in without being afraid that if they come in, they will never leave. And you will suddenly buckle in your knees because your supposed self-sufficiency is actually not nearly as strong as you would like it to be.

Neither should it be for that matter. and yes you took care of yourself you build yourself you build a life what made you come to France what were you fleeing there if I may ask I think maybe this is a long long topic perhaps I don't know I think looking back I was really disappointed with the community I had trusted I think leaving that community allowed me to feel like I could leave my home. When I was in Cape Town, I feel like I had everything I ever wanted. I had my dream house, my car, my life, everything I could ever want. I was part of a community and I feel like when I broke up with my ex, I felt like

it wasn't enough for me anymore. The life that I had that I thought was everything I ever wanted, it wasn't enough anymore. I felt like if I have everything I want, but I'm alone, it's not enough. I don't want it anymore. And then I broke away from this church community structure that I had. And then I was just like,

I'm alone again so I can leave. I can try something new, free to go wherever I want and try something else. I felt like the strings had been cut and I could just go because there were no roots like holding me anymore. There was a betrayal? I felt like it was, yeah. In what way? The people who are supposed to stand for something, our values didn't align. They didn't stand for what they said they did.

They say one thing and they think. another and I was just so angry and still I'm actually so angry at that group of people. I felt really betrayed. And actually it wasn't even that I was gay. It was for other things like the position of the church during the time of they just didn't represent what I thought they should. and when I asked questions, you were just ostracized, and I thought that the community was real,

but when you leave, it's like out of sight, out of mind. Don't cause trouble, don't ask questions, and once you're out of that frame, out of that group, it's like you don't exist anymore. So the relationships that I built for 10 years, they were disappeared overnight. the moment you step out the church you're in nobody and so it freed me to leave and to try something new but you left you left rejected yeah so it wasn't a good leaving i'm not sure i know exactly what

happened i mean why did you leave the church uh it was during the time of like 2020 and I thought that the church should be political and should stand for certain things and they rejected any questioning of representation of looking after groups and I just felt like the Jesus that I followed was not represented like there and so I asked questions and and the people who were pastors and who I would be at holidays and birthdays with, and all of a sudden I asked these questions, and there's people who I said I would do anything for and just canceled me overnight.

And so it's fine. I made other friends. I built another life there, but I still feel really, like, angry towards that group of people. I think I felt so convicted about these things because I knew what it was like to be in that space and to not be fully accepted. Like if I was in that church and people knew that I was gay,

I knew there wouldn't be a place for me. And so I think I felt like I know what it's like for people who don't feel like they can't be there. full selves here because I also couldn't be my full self there. So I think I cared so much about it because I could see my own self in that too. And perhaps it felt a little bit more, a little bit less selfish to be fighting somebody else's struggle than to be fighting my own. It was the perfect excuse, really. I could live for a far superior reason than because I was being myself. I hear you. But I also hear the sentence I had created a new family.

Yeah. For which I was really willing to give everything. And while I didn't speak up for myself this time again I found a way of speaking up for me by speaking up for others but I wasn't heard and I was exercised and I was counseled. It's fascinating

for me that you leave your family to whom you don't say a word to join a community where you have to live in full transparency and where everything you do is

scrutinized and everything you do needs to be done according to code. And you went from one extreme to another. From you know nothing about me to a community in which you know everything about me. And I have to act according to your rules because there's no compromise. You're in or you're out. Yeah. I remember him saying the pastor. when I did ask some questions, he said, if you don't like the boat, get out the boat.

So I just find it funny how you can say so many things and then act so differently. None of it was real. I don't believe anything. None of it. It was all fake. It was just for sure. Are you pleased in some ironic way, in some twisted turn of fate, that you got cancelled? So happy.

It did help me. It did release me. And it made me be able to very quickly accept that I was gay and all of these things. And I was able to just live my life. And I think if I was still part of that. that, it would have been a much longer, slower journey of accepting myself. Do you have a therapist? Not anymore.

When I was in Cape Town, I did for a long time, mostly about the family stuff and getting over my past relationship, but not anymore. Because I think as we talk, and if you look, we kind of keep. canvas, various areas of your life. We start talking about dating, meeting men, finding love, making friends, questions about what does it mean to get close to people? How do you end up not constantly thinking that whenever you enter the relationship, you enter a kind of an indentured service? Within that, you mention your deep.

attraction to black men and what that represents. There's a lot of topics. I'm just going to name them because we've just canvassed all of that. And the relationship with your sister and a relationship with your parents. You know, there's so many touch points of your life that you named. Because this is really all we did primarily what we did, is we named, how do you call it, heat map. It was like a heat map. of the hot spots of your life.

So we had sex and love and family and community and work and fetishes, et cetera. And to me, that means there's a ton to examine and stuff to clear and to become much more understanding of. and if you can find a good English-speaking therapist where you are. Yeah. But you need someone. You're very, very alone, and you ruminate in your head, and then you have this obsessive behaviors,

and then you don't like them, but you don't know what to do with what you don't like, and you don't know what to do with what you really do like. Yeah. and it doesn't have to stay this way. In a sense, you drew pieces of a map. You know? I think it's because I've been thinking so much about these things,

and so I would just say them, and I should have just focused on one thing. There's no sure. You named them. I think the first thing you said is I have so many things I want to say and I don't want to forget. And you did. You said a lot of things because you felt that they needed. to be said and they needed to be said to someone who listens and who doesn't tell you what to do

with them or doesn't tell you to shove them. You've had a home that basically invited you to be silent and you've had the church that basically invited you to be silent in another way. So we talk about being gay. We talk about men we talk about sex we talk about hookups we talk about a lot of just these words seem to be so charged yeah just the naming of these words is very very charged and is a lot there's so much like self hate and so many of them as well i know that yeah Yeah, thank you. Okay.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Esther. This was an Esther calling, a one-time intervention phone call, recorded remotely from two points somewhere in the world. If you have a question you'd like to explore with Astaire, could be answered in a 40- or 50-minute phone call. Send her a voice message, and Esther might just call you. Send your question to producer at esteraparell.com.

Where should we begin with Esther Perel is produced by Magnificent Noise? We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with New York Magazine and The Cut. Our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Destri Sibley, Sabrina Farhi, Kristen Muller, and Julianette. Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider. And the executive producers of where should we begin

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